


Stories of the Second Self: New Lease on Life

by John_Steiner



Series: Alter Idem [163]
Category: Urban Fantasy - Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:14:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22745362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/John_Steiner/pseuds/John_Steiner
Summary: A disgraced Army Delta Force operator and multiple murderer, Samuel Logan Miller also died in the Ft. Leavenworth prison. After that, the UCMJ instructed the guards to keep Samuel in solitary until the legal conditions for dealing with vampire inmates was settled. Subjected to a less ordinary review board, Samuel appears uninterested in his own fate. Yet, a massive prison break offers Samuel and end to the monotony.
Series: Alter Idem [163]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1618813





	Stories of the Second Self: New Lease on Life

Leavenworth, Kansas was where he resided now. Specifically, Fort Leavenworth's "The Castle" where all male military prisoners assigned to maximum security were kept. Solitary confinement had been home not for punishment, but because the Uniform Code of Military Justice didn't know how to handle legal rights for military prisoners with his life changes.

A Former Delta Force operative, he was also a multiple murder convict, and since a fateful day he scared the life out of the military guards and prisoners around him. Everyone knew his name.

"Samuel Logan Miller," called out a voice more stern than he was sure they felt. "You need to stand up, place your back against the door with your hands behind you. Will you comply?"

"Yes," Samuel answered, having long dropped proper verbal protocol of the U.S. Army. "I'm against the door now."

"Alright, open it," the voice said, "Control team line against the wall into action position."

Samuel heard several sets of boots move to one side along the wall where his unlit cell opened toward. Then came the loud crack of the metal like a vault with Samuel as the deposit.

In the light Samuel's once-gray mohawk hung to one side with shorter growth elsewhere on his scalp from when last he was allowed to shave it down using a disposable razor. His mustache escaped the confines of military regs when he let it grow down the sides of mouth to compete with a small beard in reaching below his chin. Muscular by human standards made his five foot, nine inch frame terrifying with the newfound strength of his current medical status.

The first set of cuffs ratcheted onto his wrists, followed by three others and a couple of zip tie restraints. Samuel wondered how many other prisoners ran up the need for one-time use restraints. Prisoners who, like Samuel no longer needed to breath and lost the ability to know total darkness. Inmates all of which spontaneously died in Leavenworth only to get up again in the correctional facility's morgue three days later.

Three heavy-duty ankle shackles were added and then secured to the handcuffs, before the row of armored men baring M-9 pistols, riot shields, shotguns, and M-4 carbines relaxed their battle ready stances.

"For-ward," the team leader sounded off, "march."

With such a short stride afforded by the shackles, Samuel couldn't really keep a military step in line with those around him, not that he wished to anyway. That life and culture died within him long before his last desperate gasp escaped his throat.

The guards marched Samuel out of the solitary wing of the prison, but made a different turn from their usual toward where he would've met with Medical, the review board, or the behavior assessment officers. Instead, they walked him to a sloped underground garage that still had the residual signs of being freshly constructed.

At one part were laid out tables, chairs, and all the semblances of a conference room carefully transplanted to hitherto unknown bowels of Leavenworth prison. One chair fashioned of heavy duty steel framing was bolted to the floor with addition ring bolts for locking restraints to.

That was Samuel's chair, he knew, but only when he was locked into place did he see who would be joining him for this unprecedented meeting.

The top brass of men and women entered with their name tags blocked out with tape ranged from colonels to lieutenant generals, the latter of whom addressed him. "Special Inmate Five, Alpha, Two, Eight, Niner, are you Samuel Logan Miller, answer yes or no."

"Yes," Samuel affirmed, keeping his uncertainty off his face.

"Do you affirm that you were convicted of the following charges," sounded off a brigadier general, "Four counts Murder in the First, two counts grand larceny, nineteen counts unlawful position of firearms on post, eight counts possession of narcotics, eight counts Article Fifteen Conduct Unbecoming, five counts assault, one count conspiracy to commit robbery, two counts human trafficking?"

"Yes," Samuel answered matter-of-factly, his solid black eyes steadily aimed at the two-star.

It was that last charge which led to Samuel being caught by Kansas State Policy in concert with the Criminal Investigation Division of the Pentagon. She shouldn't have walked out on him while he was deployed, Samuel rued silently.

"You may begin, Colonel," the brigadier general said and sat down with the other brass behind the long table.

"Understand, Mr. Miller," the Texas-sounding colonel of unknown name, "that as of Five December you were declared deceased."

"What's your point?" Samuel muttered with a cold softness, while he studied the floor beneath the high ranking officers.

"Just that you need to know that you now have no more legal rights than a corpse, which depending on how we review your case, could be declared a bio-hazard and disposed of accordingly," the colonel stated with equal ice in his tone.

"Well," Samuel drew an unnecessary breath in his pause, "I can't imagine anything to be said to stop you from doing that. Might as well cut to the chase and tell me that's the plan."

"That how you want it, Mr. Miller?" the lieutenant general asked from behind interlaced fingers.

"What I want is irrelevant and mostly illegal," Samuel said with no trace of apology. "So either you're incinerating me or putting me back into Solitary. Don't see a difference, really."

"Fortunately for you, Miller," the three star replied, "I very much do. Whether you believe it or not, I will observe the rights of inmates under my charge no matter the heinous acts listed on their sheet."

"You're not buyin' favors from me with this," a resolute Samuel huffed back while shaking his head.

"That's not what this is about," the colonel chimed in, "Our duty is to decide if you plan on turning other inmates into more vampires like yourself and if you know how that is done."

"I don't give a shit about these mother fuckers," Samuel spat, "How I dealt with the last cellmate transfer should've convinced the warden of that. I wouldn't fight for his prison MMA league and he thought he could get someone in my cell to change my mind. That fuck is in the infirmary now. Had he tried that after I died I'd have bled his bitch ass out. Anything more you wanna know about that?"

"In talking with other inmates, it's been established that mere biting isn't enough," the colonel revealed to Samuel. "Were you aware of that?"

"No, and I don't give a shit," Samuel answered, eyes locked on the colonel's boots.

"Have you sustained an injury that led to blood loss of any amount after your, shall we say, necrotic episode?" the colonel queried on.

"Nope," Samuel lied.

"If you had," the colonel's voice made Samuel think he assumed the opposite, "would you encourage another inmate to ingest it?"

"No," Samuel replied honestly this time, "Nor would I stop them."

"Suppose that did turn them into one of you," the colonel reasoned the hypothetical out. "What would you do?"

"Make it clear that if they touch my allotment of blood I'd fuckin' kill 'em again," Samuel's tone alluded to a simmering anger, "and make sure they don't get up a second time."

"Do you realize where that blood is coming from, Mr. Miller?" the woman major general asked.

"I don't care," Samuel again was forthright in his answer.

"We found that werewolf inmates...," she tried to explain.

"You not hear me?" Samuel cut her off, "I said I don't give a fuck. Bleed those mongrels dry if you want. They're nothin' to me."

"Is there anything that matters to you?" the lieutenant general asked.

"Nothin' you'll allow," Samuel tossed back, "So don't promise me shit."

"We're not asking for your cooperation in any other case," the major general stated, "Nor are we here to make you offers for same. You're here to assess what risk you pose to this or any other facility. Your-- crossing over was spontaneous and through mechanisms still unknown, but it's suspected there is a quantifiable pathology for future vampires."

"I don't care who else turns," Samuel reiterated, "I'm not starting a club for this shit."

Then the lieutenant general opened a folder and produced from that a photo. "Do you recognize this?"

"Yes," Samuel said after a brief glance.

"It was taken inside your cell in Solitary," the three-star continued, "Though, I suspect it's not written out of remorse."

"Fuckin' A right about that," Samuel agreed.

"So why'd you write it?" the lieutenant general asked.

"Let you all know and the other inmates know I'm not to be fucked with." Samuel was in no mode to be 'handled' in the psy-ops fashion.

Samuel heard a loud bang from somewhere else in the prison, and it caused a couple faces to stare off at the plausible source. Could've been an accident in the prison warehouse, he thought and brushed it off. One of the generals waved the transfer team officer over and whispered to him.

For all his improved visible night vision, ultraviolet, and infrared, Samuel's others senses remained unchanged. He didn't hear what the general said, and just assumed he was being overly cautious, because that's what Rear-With-the-Gear and FOB-it brass do.

The transfer officer walked away from the assembly of tables and made a call on radio while the generals resumed their questions. True to form, they were only interested in if and how Samuel might turn another human being. Yet, neither did Samuel know if or how it might occur, and he definitely didn't care.

More crashes and recognizable explosions sounded. Then it was gunfire. Samuel felt more at home already, and his absent staring at seeming minutia now held value. The door he had been walked through blew off its hinges in a roar of rolling debris and dust.

Unsure who was doing what, Samuel watched men flood into the room, some in prison jumpsuits and others in civilian clothes, and they shot up anyone wearing green.

One inmate took a look at Samuel, shivered uncontrollably, and waved the others on. "Nah, leave 'em. Trust me."

They set another improvised charge against the wall and cleared back before detonating it. It was daylight, but the sun wasn't directly shining into the garage. When the dust and shards of cement settled the prisoner escapees and their apparent outside helpers raced through the jagged maw.

Looking around, Samuel saw that no one living was left and then worked his fingers into his sleeve. As a vampire, Samuel didn't heal without blood, but he didn't bleed as much when shoving a improvised metal file under his skin shortly before being transferred to Solitary several months ago. His skin had grown over, or whatever the undead equivalent was, and so Samuel forced the file out through a fresh injury.

Hours passed while he worked away at the cuffs, the zip ties and other restraints. Once free, Samuel saw that night had fallen. The escapees didn't bother collecting weapons from the guards they'd killed, leaving Samuel a new supply of arms, along with cooled blood still remaining in bodies, for when he departed Leavenworth.

Outside, he saw that the entire prison was ablaze and scant few guards were around. More smoke rose from the rest of the Ft. Leavenworth and the surrounding county.

"Fitting," Samuel remarked with approval.

It looked like the end of the world, which suited the dead and freed Samuel Logan Miller just fine.


End file.
